Specialists Called in to Subdue Chevron Blaze

According to the Department of Environmental Protection, Greene County residents can expect the Chevron shale gas well fire to burn into the weekend, but face no immediate danger.

StateImpact Pennsylvania reporter Katie Colaneri is following developments in this story and says a Texas well control company that specializes in shale gas fires has arrived at the scene, but the size of the flames has halted progress.

“At this point, because the fire is still going, even at the end of the day yesterday, that Texas well control company hadn’t been able to get close enough to the fire to determine a cause or to put it out. The last we heard from the DEP was that they were coming up with a plan to stop the blaze.”

One employee was injured in the explosion and one worker remains missing. Colaneri says incidents like these are an unfortunate reminder of the serious dangers in this line of work. She maintains that the experts dispatched to the scene have followed every protocol and are properly handling the situation.